This plus a Harold's Chicken. CFA can FO.

While this is very true, I have a hard time thinking about people eating Italian beef sandwiches dripping with au-jus and giardiniera while waiting to board their flight back to Dallas. . .

And not to get far too off topic, but I personally get the Italian beef/sausage combo dry - with both the au-jus and giardiniera on the side - as well as melted cheese (for dipping of course). . . I cut the sandwich in half and garnish each bite with the appropriate amount of sauce/peppers which prevents whatever I'm wearing that day from looking like Hiroshima when I'm done eating. . . not sure the average tourist pressed for time at O'Hare is going to heed the same level of attention required to keep from making a mess. . . [/mytwocents]

. . .

I go for the hot dogs.... and the CHOCOLATE CAKE. Who doesn't want to bring that onto a plane ride and enjoy with a cocktail mid-flight? I know I would...

Seriously though, if you can have a McDonalds at the airport, you can do a Portillos (if we are talking about food quality here). Shitty food doesn't have boundaries that stop at airport terminals.

Just provide Portillo's bibs like the lobstah places in Boston! Problem solved.

Also lots of folks get hot dogs or burgers at Portillo's, so it's not just beef.

The List of Busiest Airports for 2020 by passenger traffic is out! Chicago is no longer in the Top 10! I'm surprised that other airports like DFW and especially DEN surpassed it!

1.) Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (China) - 43,760,427 passengers
2.) Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (USA) - 42,918,685 passengers
3.) Chengdu Shuangliu International Airport (China) - 40,741,509 passengers
4.) Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (USA) - 39,364,990 passengers
5.) Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport (China) - 37,916,059 passengers
6.) Chongqing Jiangbei International Airport (China) - 34,937,789 passengers
7.) Beijing Capital International Airport (China) - 34,513,827 passengers
8.) Denver International Airport (USA) - 33,741,129 passengers
9.) Kunming Changshui International Airport (China) - 32,989,127 passengers
10.) Shanghai Hongqiao International Airport (China) - 31,165,641 passengers
11.) Xi'an Xianyang International Airport (China) - 31,073,884 passengers
12.) Tokyo Haneda Airport (Japan) - 30,965,000 passengers
13.) Chicago O'Hare International Airport (USA) - 30,860,251 passengers
14.) Shanghai Pudong International Airport (China) - 30,476,531 passengers
15.) Los Angeles International Airport (USA) - 28,779,527 passengers
16.) Indira Gandhi International Airport (India) - 28,501,000 passengers
17.) Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport (China) - 28,224,342 passengers
18.) Charlotte Douglas International Airport (USA) - 27,200,000 passengers
19.) Dubai International Airport (UAE) - 25,900,000 passengers
20.) Istanbul Airport (Turkey) - 23,409,000 passengers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...senger_traffic

As far as aircraft movements go, Chicago has fallen to second place behind Atlanta:

1.) Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport (USA) - 548,016 aircraft movements
2.) Chicago O'Hare International Airport (USA) - 538,211 aircraft movements
3.) Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport (USA) - 514,702 aircraft movements
4.) Denver International Airport (USA) - 436,971 aircraft movements
5.) Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport (USA) - 402,444 aircraft movements
6.) Charlotte Douglass International Airport (USA) - 397,983 aircraft movements
7.) Los Angeles International Airport (USA) - 379,364 aircraft movements
8.) Guangzhou Baiyun International Airport (China) - 373,421 aircraft movements
9.) Shanghai Pudong International Airport (China) - 325,678 aircraft movements
10.) Las Vegas McCarran International Airport (USA) - 323,442 aircraft movements

https://aci.aero/news/2021/04/22/aci...iest-airports/

Yes that's the correct answer. But I'll still go with Frontera every time.

I'm basically ignoring 2020's statistics as a complete and total outlier. 2021's are going to be at least somewhat questionable as well, though I'd guess a bit more reliable than 2020's at least. Won't be until 2022 where passenger numbers, plane movements and overall rankings will really mean anything at all. I would surely expect ORD to be back in the top 10 unless nearly every major Chinese airport suddenly takes every spot on the list.

Aaron (Glowrock)

^ But Chicago's drop should have been similar to drops across the board.

Truth is, O'Hare is just no longer the king of airports that it once was for so many years. It's still a huge and important global airport, but other airports have obviously usurped it.

Now, I think Chicago's location will always give it a natural advantage with air traffic. But the growth of the sunbelt and population shifts further south and west are obviously going to prop up Atlanta and Dallas

I'm not an aviation consultant. You're obviously partly correct. But ORD is a little funny, too. Chicago is the number one business travel destination in the U.S. And in a country where people largely move from city to city by plane, that makes airports here very different from, say, Tokyo or Heathrow, where they are essentially just entry and exit country-ports. You would expect those different kinds of airports to have different behaviors when traffic drops 55%

Also, Denver, Atlanta, Charlotte and DFW are single airline hubs. ORD having two major hubs has advantages and disadvantages, but when airlines retreat to core operations, those shelters may not advantage the more unpredictable Chicago.

Passenger throughput depends a lot on large international flights deplaning constantly and then heading off to their connections. Chicago's international operation is a mess. You're not going to see that kind of traffic tick up compared to its peers once the global terminal is complete. But once that happens, maybe lookout? It's going to be the smoothest most convenient terminal to operate in in the Americas by far, it seems--the only U.S. terminal that functions at the level you see in Seoul, Madrid or Tokyo. And obviously it will be the newest. Combine that with more runways than any other airport and ORD is going to get it's fair share. Though ATL and LAX (like Dubai) have logistical advantages for international flights related to geography that you can't buy.

^ Yeah, my comments are more related to ORD today.

Once the Global terminal gets completed, I'm sure ORD will see a huge growth. Will it return to being top in the world? I"m guessing not, but then, what do I know?

yeah, fortress hubs seemed to fair a bit better than multi-hubs, generally speaking.

there also seems to be a correlation between airports in states that didn't lockdown as hard and smaller % drops in passenger traffic. i mean, the bottom 5 here are all in NY, CA, and IL.


but overall 2020 US airport passenger traffic drops were pretty brutal across the board, some just didn't free-fall quite as much as others.



2019 - 2020 % decrease in passenger traffic:

Charlotte Douglas International Airport: -46.0%
Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport: -47.5%
Denver International Airport: -51.1%
Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport: -52.6%
Fort Lauderdale–Hollywood International Airport: -55.1%
Orlando International Airport: -57.7%
Miami International Airport: -59.4%
George Bush Intercontinental Airport: -59.5%
Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport: -60.2%
Seattle–Tacoma International Airport: -61.3%
O'Hare International Airport: -63.5%
Newark Liberty International Airport: -65.7%
Los Angeles International Airport: -67.3%
San Francisco International Airport: -71.4%
John F. Kennedy International Airport: -73.4%

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...senger_traffic

It would seem by those last numbers that those that took the hardest hit are also the US airports most reliant and best performing when taken into account international passengers. This isn't too surprising considering that international travel basically shut down in the last year while domestic travel was on mere life-support.

Also not surprising that American, United, and Delta all doubled down on the hub-spoke model during the pandemic at their fortress hubs. A lot more regional flights from ORD compared to Denver but I don't think United was not too worried about serving flights to Duluth/Lansing/Dayton last summer. They likely just wanted to make sure their prime East-West major city markets were efficiently connected based on a more limited service model. So Denver probably didn't see the drawdown that ORD did. And given the number of gates and control in Dallas American will always use Dallas as hub of first resort in most cases.

As far as all those Chinese cities on the top list that is likely a site that will be seen in the coming years, obviously. Not to get to political but especially during this Covid era at least I don't trust Chinese numbers very much, be they in the case of Covid cases or passenger counts.

Well, having 4 times our population helps, pretty sure they will have even MORE airports pass us by soon.

100% true. As Illinois was so unpredictable airlines were pulling Chicago traffic to southern hubs will a more open mentality. ATL, DFW, CLT, DEN all gained from this with AA, UA, DL connection flights pulling Chicago traffic, but they also had very low load factors overall at those hubs. The true sign of how important Chicago really is are the overall movement at ORD last year(2nd even with much less passenger flights). And don't forget RFD was moving alot of cargo last year too. International airlines continued to fly into ORD even when almost every other US airport were not getting flights. Aer Lingus is a perfect example with 75 % of their North American flights last summer going to ORD. CARGO CARGO CARGO...

Good points everyone is making!

I've definitely noticed tons of cargo coming into Chicago, with a lot of European airlines and Chinese airlines operating multiple cargo flights a day.

International traffic is slowly starting to pick up again at ORD. I saw that United recently restarted service to Tel Aviv, Emirates will increase DXB to 6x a week in June, British Airways restarts passenger service to LHR in a few weeks, and the number of flights to Asia will increase later this year.

I also think most of those numbers for the fortress hubs are primarily domestic since airports like ATL, DFW, and especially DEN don't have anywhere near the number of airlines or international destinations served as ORD does. I mean sure ATL was the world's busiest airport (before 2020), but it isn't even top 25 for international traffic. It's only because Delta connects everyone flying domestic through there.

I guess Chicago will make a big comeback once the Global Terminal is complete because of how easy it will be to pass through the airport and it would completely transform O'Hare into a world class airport. I can't wait for the Global Terminal to be complete and I would love to fly into it sometime if I ever visit or connect through Chicago again.

For those of you that frequently fly through ORD, would you say that the runway reorientation to make 6 runways parallel has helped with delays?

Still no word on when ORD’s ATS/people mover will finally reopen? I searched online and didn’t find much news recently.

It's been in testing for a while and is basically done. I believe they are planning to demolish the old remote parking station at some point, but it is still standing.

A few photos from ORD. I may have taken a few of them:)

https://www.airlinefan.com/airline-p...O%27Hare-Int./

Unlocking United’s Hub Waves: Inside The Airline’s Recovery

"United Airlines will add over 400 additional flights each day this July, pushing its total planned schedule to 80% of what it had in pre-pandemic July 2019. Confidence is returning, aided by vaccination progress, and the airline is responding. Key in this is adding back waves at Chicago and Washington, which is vital in helping the hubs to recover."

O’Hare’s fightback for largest hub:
"In July 2019, O’Hare took the throne for the number-one hub, as indicated below. Cutbacks meant it reduced to third, with Gupta saying that two waves will be added – or, really, added back."

https://simpleflying.com/unlocking-uniteds-hub-waves/

https://cdn.businesstraveller.com/wp...v2-916x516.jpg

Good news! Emirates is increasing it's ORD-DXB service frequency to 7x week (1x daily) in June! It originally wasn't supposed to increase to 7x week (1x daily) until November, so that could be a sign that international travel from ORD is starting to rebound!

I'm kinda surprised though that they are increasing frequency but not bringing the A380 to ORD this summer, whereas for places like Washington and San Francisco, they are bringing the A380 back there this summer but will continue to only have 4x a week frequencies for those two cities.

I really want Emirates to bring the A380 to ORD. I only say that though as I think I will be in Dubai towards the end of the year for a bit before coming back here for the holidays and want to get an A380 run in before the thing is no longer being produced.

The roof of the ORD21 main terminal design is changing. For better or worse, it won't be the serrated glass segments that were shown on the competition design. The cost was way too high to have that throughout the main terminal...mind you, NOT material cost/construction cost, rather cost of engineering such a massive space that would require moving a lot of conditioned air in the summer due to solar heat gain and heating the space in the winter time with so much glass everywhere. I don't know the exact amount, but what I've heard from others in my office is that it was almost double what was budgeted. The new roof is more monolithic, which would look similar to the terminal five expansion. However on the plus side, there are numerous openings throughout, randomized to look like a starfield at night (from above). The openings provide light into the terminal, and the large, six-pointed 'Chicago' star in the middle is still included/integral to the design. The interior terminal design has been refined and I think looks very sleek, contemporary and bold, especially the structural column and trusses.

In a way, I think this type of design refinement somewhat proves that the Calatrava and Foster designs were untenable from the beginning, because they would both been even more cost prohibitive and would have been altered significantly during project design development, possibly leading to a bigger fiasco over cost overruns and extreme design dilution. The StudioORG/Gang terminal layout is maintained, it's really just the roof that has been altered. I don't know if this is the final design, it may change again, who knows?

Honestly, I would be fine with them just building the Skidmore Owings and Merrill design. Sure it's the most boring out of the bunch, but it's functional, looks nice, and would be by far the least expensive to build.

Here are some pictures of the SOM design incase anyone forgot what it looks like:
https://www.som.com/FILE/29835/ohare...510_som_01.jpg

https://archinect.imgix.net/uploads/...press%2Cformat

https://aasarchitecture.com/wp-conte...Chicago-10.jpg

https://aasarchitecture.com/wp-conte...Chicago-05.jpg

https://static.dezeen.com/uploads/20..._0-852x428.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...9f731d7f_c.jpg

SOM is involved, they are designing the two satellite extensions to terminal 1.

I know. I was saying that I would be fine if they go for SOM's design for the main terminal in addition to the satellite concourses. It would save them a lot of money and would be a functional design that works better.

SOM was the runner-up, so I’m sure the judges took all that into consideration.

But ultimately, having an integrated concourse and terminal is not small potatoes and probably tilted the contest in Gang’s favor. It’s a major operational feature.

I was not expecting high energy bills to be a deal breaker at this point in the process, considering 4 of the 5 proposals were gung-ho about energy-guzzling large open spaces with lofty glass ceilings and skylights.

But I suppose it was good planning from the Gang team not to make that particular roof integral to the fundamental design if an issue like this came up.

Makes me wonder how so many of the new Asian/Europe glass-sheathed terminals get around that issue. Or temperature regulation be damned do they just pay the enormous energy bills for the sake of design/light.

Excited to see the changes of the interior designs though.

Much of Europe has a completely different climate than the U.S. and especially Chicago. I can imagine the temperature regulation calculations look very different for Chicago which has almost double the direct sunshine hours as London.

East Asia is also more comparable to Canada than the U.S. in that respect.

Energy bills might legitimately not be a huge issue for airport architecture in Europe and Asia.

Oh well. Those sorts of environmental limits can allow for organic shifts in style if done right.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Maps/commen...tm_name=iossmf


https://britishbusinessenergy.co.uk/...usa-europe.png

That map is very strange. According to that we get the same amount of sun as NYC. The US weather service says that is not accurate, showing a chart can be made to prove either side of any argument. Not really sure how they measure sunlight in both cities but I have seen perfectly clear days at ORD in Chicago called partly cloudy.

Check the maps again and notice that the colors are not based upon the same span of hours.
Black >3500 hours
Burgundy 3000 - 3500 hours (range of 500 hours)
Red (Dark Orange) 2500 - 3000 hours (range of 500 hours)
Orange (Light Orange) 2000 -2500 hours (range of 500 hours)
Yellow 1800 - 2000 hours (range of 200 hours)
Green 1600 - 1800 hours (range of 200 hours)
Light Blue 1200-1600 hours (range of 400 hours)
Dark Blue <1200 hours
Chicago and New York City might have up to 500 hours of sunlight difference masked under the same color, which could be within the range of three different colors in a less sunny location.
Why use different ranges? Because they can and also wish to confuse everybody.

FWIW, wikipedia says the following regarding Chicago and NYC sunshine:

- NYC gets 57% of it's possible annual sunshine for 2,535 total sunshine hours per year.

- Chicago gets 56% of it's possible annual sunshine for 2,508 total sunshine hours per year.



A fairly negligible difference in the grand scheme of things. We're not exactly comparing Vancouver to Phoenix here

Chicago:

https://www.bestplaces.net/climate/c...20the%20ground.


New York City:

https://www.bestplaces.net/climate/c...20to%20measure.

I do think it closer than that. NYC official is central park I believe and Chicago is O'hare. central park has better weather than LGA and JFK most of the time. They used to take official Chicago readings at MDW until 1980 for some reason.

I'll trust wikipedia's weather data any day of the week over some random, never heard of it before website called "bestplaces.net".

Unfortunately these sorts of maps are usually published for the European audience, so they’re more interested in depicting the slight nuances between European regions rather than a precise representation of temperature in the U.S.

But it does make the point that much of Europe has a very different experience with sunshine and temperature regulation.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List...shine_duration

Interesting, I guess I never realized the whole roof was an elaborate sawtooth. Reminds me of what happened to Pelli's design for the Wintrust Arena.

I hope they are keeping the wood ceilings (or faux wood, assuming real wood is out for flame spread reasons).

Average US elevation is 2,443 ft???! whaaaaa?? :shrug:

Well Wikipedia is not reliable either. Find a better source than both of these if you like.

Iberia was back yesterday with passenger flights. It came in and sat overnight at the T5 hardstand. Iberia as some might have noticed has been flying to ORD during the pandemic with cargo flights several times a week.

https://www.businesstraveller.com/bu...boston-and-la/

Given the western half of the continent, it seems very reasonable to me:

https://gisgeography.com/us-elevation-map/

Obviously some sort of average based on population would be much, much lower.

Looks like Icelandair is back today, with a 737 8 MAX no less. They have been promising a return for several months.

That would be nice but with many carriers starting to retire their A380s I wouldn't count on it. The last A380 to be built was delivered to Emirates back in March so production has officially already ceased. Sad but true.

I traveled through ORD this week and was surprised at how much progress has been made on Terminal 5. I wasn’t able to get any good pictures though, but I was very excited to see this!

Cool! Have they finished with the framework and started with walls and windows? Also, how does it look from the inside?

Not that far: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/power...863388672-MbSw

^ Thanks for sharing the link. Here are the pictures from it:

https://media-exp3.licdn.com/dms/ima...y4VkeAf8DdK7wY

https://media-exp3.licdn.com/dms/ima...Qt3cudBjsIwsb4

https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/ima...lT_t7ZhDRC5mrE

https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/ima..._bL-wKk-INMLL4

https://media-exp1.licdn.com/dms/ima...mpPsvAqy_Ai9lo

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to resize these images.

It looks like some of the existing gates got new jetways as well.

so, how about the HUGE united jet buy:

200 - 737 MAX

70 - A321 NEO


said to be replacing lots of smaller regional jets.

let's hope the hometown airline is planning to up-gauge a lot of former regional flights out of ORD in the coming years.

could be a big competitive advantage for them over american in the local market.

United Adds 270 Boeing and Airbus Aircraft to Fleet, Largest Order in Airline's History and Biggest by a Single Carrier in a Decade

https://images.axios.com/mmRt-R24mqP...4918666781.jpg

https://hub.united.com/united-adds-2...653586391.html
https://www.united.com/ual/en/us/fly...nes-fleet.html

Very nice! Not the biggest United fan, but happy to see them upgrading....

It's interesting to see the choice of aircraft. Am I wrong to assume they are betting on more hub/spoke travel, or is this just to replace several aging aircraft across the board, and doesn't really reflect where they think the industry is going?

Still strange times at ORD. Although it is back on top with the most departures daily strange flights are still coming in.

Latest airlines to add more service is LATAM with 777-300 to SA and Canadian Cargojet with 767-300F aircraft to CA. This adds to the service from Air Canada for cargo using 787 and 777 aircraft. Funny thing is MDW does almost no cargo. Should have lengthened those runways years ago by buying houses around the airport like they did at ORD. Now the extra Chicagoland cargo business is going to RFD.